The optical characteristic
of a pronouncing compressed perspective and the reach often makes fast speed telephoto
lenses a strong creative tool for taking compelling images. You can isolate the subject
from disturbing background and makes fore and the background appear to be drawn together.
Most of all, the faster maximum lens speed permits use of a critical extra stop or
two higher shutter speeds to freeze an action - which makes fast speed telephoto
lenses almost synonymous at stage, indoor-sports, news in low ambient light photography.
However, as most fixed focal length telephoto meeting such criteria was often begin
from the super-tele range at 300mm & above. Below the 300mm focal length, Canon
EF lens family has an EF 200mm f/2.8L FD telephoto lens which serves
general needs. The Canon EF 200mm f/1.8L was introduced in 1989 along with
the debut of the Canon
EOS-630 -
until it was officially retired from Canon EF lens group at the beginning of 2004,
it was till hailed as the world's fastest 200mm telephoto ever. Many did question
the wisdom of such a decision but I guess it was more like a commercial decision
as the 200mm has many other options which covers any potential needs of photographers.

However, not many realized
the fact Canon did produced
an equivalent in a FDn Mount Canon 200mm f/1.8L a year after the
EF version in satisfying
persistent request from users of New Canon F1 and Canon T90. So, technically, the FD 200mm
f/1.8L in 1990 could possibly be the last FD-mount Canon lense that roll out from
the factory in Canon. Naturally, you can't autofocus with the lens and neither some
of the lovely features designed for the EOS can be used with any of the FD-mount SLRs.

Credit:- A highly recommended articleby
Marco Cavina, Italy who has prepared some of the optical analysis
as well as the FD-EOS Converter. It was written in Italian but you can make use of
Google utility to translate: http://google

So, while competitions
like Nikon was still struggling in providing a workable autofocus solution for Nikon
photographers during the late 80 to match the superiority of the EOS/EF combination
(other than the AF Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 ED IF, the distance chip equipped Nikkor
500mm f/4.0 IF-ED P
(1988) was essentially a non-AF super tele and the first batch of super-tele autofocus
such as the AF-I 500mm f/4D IF-ED and AF-I 600mm f/4D IF-ED were only introduced
in 1993 !); on the other hand, Canon EF lens group already was equipped with four
super-tele in the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L
(1987), EF 400mm f/5.6L, EF 600mm f/4L(1989) as well as this
1989's Canon EF 200mm f/1.8L ever ready for Canon photographers
on the working field. And by the time the AF-I Nikkor came to the market, Canon has
expanded the professional EF super-tele group with even more options in the various
Canon EF 300mm f/4.0L (1992); EF 400mm f/2.8L (1992/3), EF 500mm f/4.5L (1993/4).. So, the success of
Canon EOS system over the others was not coincidental as it took a very well schemed
effort in analyzing weaknesses of its opponents on the market place.

As you move away from 50mm, which is
considered a standard focal length by many, to telephoto lenses, like 85mm, 135mm,
200mm and even longer, you will notice three phenomena with the increasing focal
length or also angle of view. The object is getting increasingly larger, the perspective
is getting more compressed and the depth of field is getting shallower. The ability
to isolate the object while the background is thrown into a pleasing blur, therefore
emphasizing the feeling of presence, is the characteristic of telephoto lenses. The
term for the pleasing background blur is bokeh, which is derived from the
Japanese language. Lens designers do pay attention to how the bokeh looks
like early in the design stage.

Canon has been producing those white
long telephoto lenses for quite sometime. Even back then during the FD System days,
Canon had some white lenses in the lineup. The use of ultra dispersion and fluorite
elements, and more recently exotic optical formula, such diffractive optics, among
others have made these white lenses synonym with excellence in the telephoto range.
At sporting events from local tennis, football, baseball, basketball games to international
sporting events such as the Olympic Games, you will see event photographers capturing
pictures with and carrying those big, long lenses around.

This write-up represents a compilation of
my personal experience using several Canon telephoto lenses ranging form 200mm to
500mm in the last couple years. Needles to say, if I never used it, I would not talk
about it.

While I own and use medium telephoto lenses,
such as the Canon EF 85mm f/1.2L and EF 135mm f/2.0L
and long telephoto lenses, such as the EF 300mm f/2.8LIS and Canon EF 500mm f/4.0LIS, I consider the now discontinued 200mm f/1.8L as the bokeh king
in my lens lineup. Why did Canon discontinue the lens is beyond me. Not enough sales
to keep the production running or may be it had to do with the by-products generated
during the manufacturing since some of the elements contained lead (as in Pb, a heavy
metal)? Since it contained lead, the by-products (read: waste) will have to be contained
and handled appropriately as it may harm the environment. Regardless, this lens has
increased in value after it has been discontinued. That alone indicates that it has
gained more popularity among Canon aficionados, including myself.

With its closest focusing distance of
8.2 feet/ 2.5 meter, and especially with its large aperture at that focal length
(Canon claimed this lens to have the widest aperture available in the EF Lens Work
II), the ability to isolate the object of this lens is astounding. Stopping down
the aperture generally will only result in increased the depth-of-field and barely
increases the resolution. You may want to use this lens at its widest aperture or
stop it down a little bit to fully exploit this lens capability. If you use this
lens for portraits, you may get one eye in focus and the other out of focus. As long
as you are aware of that and that is the effect you are after, you will have a blast
playing the shallow depth-of-field game with this lens. This lens can generate great
images but its high resolving power can be less flattering to people with facial
blemishes if used for portraits from a short distance. Fashion show on catwalk, model
shots, or any type of photography that would benefit from the isolating capability
of this lens would be the typical application. In addition, the large aperture enables
the use of a fast shutter speed to freeze movement for indoor sports.

In the last year of production or so, Canon made some small modifications to this
lens. They didn't announce the change publicly as the changes apparently did not
warrant the Mark II distinction. Cosmetically, the changed is even smaller; the label
at the AF switch reads MF instead of M for the manual focus setting. The coating
on the later version looks a little greener and the aperture on the newer version
when stopped down yields a slightly rounder opening. At one time I had both versions
of this lens but did not do any direct comparison between the two and I consider
them to be optically the same. The reason that the second version is generally more
expensive is simply that it was manufactured later. At the same price and condition,
I would choose the later version but if not, all bets are off.

Is this a perfect lens? Optically, probably
very close. This is not a lens that you can carry around and take pictures without
any support for hours. Ergonomically, the lens is a tad unbalanced on a monopod,
my favorite support setup when using this lens. The lens collar is mounted quite
a bit towards the front end of the lens; although the front element is huge, depending
on the camera you use, it still doesn't provide a well-balanced setup. For easy and
quick mounting and dismounting, I am using an Arca Swiss-style clamp/ball head on
the monopod and that requires a plate to be mounted on the tripod collar. With the
added bulk of that plate, the lens hood cannot be mounted in the reverse position
over the lens for storage/transport. Besides those minor things, this lens is a joy
to use and very rewarding when you view the images afterwards.

Then there is the little brother, the 200mm f/2.8L. It is lighter and therefore easier
to carry around and it also can generate awesome images. At smaller apertures such
as f/5.6, the quality of images this little, black lens can produce is virtually
the same as that of the big, white lens.

" ... I can only sum up this lens
by one word: awesome! It is razor sharp even wide open at f1.8. The light gathering
power of this lens gives very bright images on the viewfinder. It produces very beautiful
out-of focus boken that makes it suitable for portrait or sport isolating the subject
from the background. The subject simply "pops" out of the background. The
DOF of this lens at 2.5m is about 2cm. This lens uses a large ring type L-2 USM and
it is extremely fast and responsive, in par with the AF speed of my 300 f2.8L.
The wide open aperture performance of the 200 f1.8L is noticeably
better than that of the 300 f/2.8 (non-IS) version based on my experience with both
lenses. Weighting 3kg, hand holding is still fine but a monopod can help a great
deal. I frequently use this lens for indoor gymnastics, fashion, wildlife, outdoor
sport and portrait, sometimes with 1.4x MK II convertor. Full time manual focusing
is available at 3 different speeds. Focus preset function allows you to store the
AF setting at any time which is very useful in sport applications. The hood is huge
and made of metal. With the hood attached, this lens looks like an imposing beast.
It comes with a heavy duty aluminum trunk and leather lens case. Too bad Cannon discontinued
this great classics last year with no immediate replacement model. OK it was introduced
in the 1989. By today standard, it is still unsurpressed by any other lens in terms
of specifications and performance at this focal length (well until the recent introduction
of Nikon 200mm f2 AF-S VR, vibration reduction lens). People who think this lens
is obsolete don't know what they miss ! ....".

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